How to become an EY (Ernst & Young) supplier: the realistic path through Inclusive Procurement

EY spends heavily on the things a global professional services firm needs: technology, real estate, travel, marketing, events, and a long tail of professional and outsourced services. A meaningful slice of that goes through what EY calls its Inclusive Procurement program, the team responsible for finding and developing diverse-owned suppliers.

Here's the part most articles skip. EY does not run a public bid board where you browse open contracts and submit a price. Getting in is a registration-and-relationship process, not a transaction. You register, you get screened, and then you wait to be matched against a real need. This guide walks the actual path, what to have ready, and where the on-ramp realistically starts.

What EY's supplier diversity program is actually called

EY runs supplier inclusion through its Inclusive Procurement team, which sits inside EY Supply Chain Services. You'll also see the work described as "inclusive and sustainable procurement," because EY pairs diverse-supplier sourcing with its environmental and social goals under the same group.

One thing worth flagging. Across 2025, several large companies renamed or restructured their supplier diversity teams, swapping "diversity" for "inclusion," "engagement," or "belonging." Target moved its team to "supplier engagement." Meta cut its program. If you're reading EY's pages and the wording looks different from this guide, that's the reason. Confirm the current program name on EY's procurement page before you reach out, and use whatever language EY is using at the moment. The underlying intent, sourcing more from certified diverse-owned firms, has been more durable than the labels.

EY defines a diverse supplier the standard way: a business at least 51% owned, operated, and controlled by a minority, woman, LGBTQ+ person, veteran, service-disabled veteran, person with a disability, or an Indigenous person.

Get your certification in order first

EY, like most corporate buyers, wants a third-party certification, not your word that you're diverse-owned. Self-attestation rarely clears a corporate procurement screen. The certifications that carry weight with a firm like EY are the national ones:

• NMSDC (National Minority Supplier Development Council) for minority-owned firms, the MBE certification.
• WBENC (Women's Business Enterprise National Council) for women-owned firms, the WBE certification.
• NGLCC (National LGBT Chamber of Commerce) for LGBTQ-owned firms, the LGBTBE certification.
• Disability:IN for disability-owned businesses, the DOBE certification.
• NaVOBA for veteran and service-disabled veteran-owned firms.

If you've already done federal certification work (8(a), WOSB, SDVOSB), good, but understand these are different tracks. A corporate buyer like EY leans on the corporate certifiers above, not the SBA designations. If you only hold a government certification, you may still need an NMSDC or WBENC certificate to register cleanly as a diverse supplier on the corporate side. CertifyAll handles the filing across the bodies that apply to your ownership, so you're not running each application separately.

One certification a corporate buyer trusts is usually enough to start. You don't need all five.

Where you actually register

EY routes supplier registration through a few channels, so use the one that fits.

1. The inclusive procurement inbox. If you specifically want to be considered as a diverse supplier, the direct route is emailing EY's Inclusive Procurement team at EYInclusiveProcurement@eyg.ey.com. This is the address that reaches the people who run diverse-supplier sourcing, rather than a general procurement queue. Confirm it's still current on EY's procurement page before you send.

2. The supplier registration form. EY's procurement page (ey.com, under legal and privacy, procurement) carries a "register as a supplier" form. This is the front door for general supplier interest.

3. The EY Supplier Experience Navigator. EY operates a supplier portal, the EY Supplier Experience Navigator (hosted at ey.suppliergateway.com), as a central place for the information and resources you need to work with EY Supply Chain Services. Once you're in process, EY may also ask you to complete a supplier self-assessment questionnaire covering your social and environmental policies, practices, and certifications. Have your certification numbers and basic ESG answers ready so you're not stalling on it.

Do all three if you qualify as diverse: email the inclusive procurement team, complete the registration form, and be ready for the portal and questionnaire when they come.

What to have ready before you register

Registering is fast if your materials are clean and slow if you're assembling them on the fly. Pull these together first:

• Your active diverse-supplier certificate(s) with certification numbers and expiration dates. Expired certs get you rejected.
• A tight capability statement. One page, specific. What you sell, the categories you serve, named clients or past work, your differentiator. EY buys professional services, technology, real estate, travel, and marketing-adjacent services in volume, so map your pitch to a category EY actually buys.
• Your NAICS or UNSPSC codes, so your registration files into the right commodity buckets.
• Basic ESG answers, because the self-assessment questionnaire asks about your environmental and social practices and policies.
• Insurance and references, the standard procurement diligence items.

The capability statement does more work than anything else here. A buyer skims it in thirty seconds to decide whether you fit a need. Make it concrete.

Tier 1 and Tier 2: two ways in

There are two ways a diverse supplier ends up counted in EY's diverse spend, and the second is the more realistic starting point for most firms.

Tier 1 is a direct contract: you sell to EY, EY pays you. This is the goal, and it's competitive. EY isn't going to displace an incumbent because you're certified; the certification gets you a fair look against a real need, not a guaranteed award.

Tier 2 is subcontracting. EY's larger prime suppliers carry their own diverse-spend expectations, and EY expects suppliers to use their best efforts to procure from diverse businesses as subcontractors. So a faster on-ramp is often to land a subcontract under one of EY's existing prime vendors, who then reports your work as Tier 2 diverse spend. You get the revenue and the relationship, and you build the past performance that makes a future Tier 1 award credible.

If a direct EY contract feels out of reach today, ask who EY's primes are in your category and pursue them. That's a real path, not a consolation prize.

What about mentorship and accelerator programs

EY runs supplier development work, though it varies by region and year. In Canada, EY has run a pitch competition and mentorship program for 2SLGBTQ+ entrepreneurs to help them build the skills to grow. Programs like this come and go and shift by market, so don't bank on a specific one being open when you apply. Treat any accelerator or pitch program as a bonus, and build your case on certification plus a clean capability fit.

A realistic timeline and on-ramp

Set expectations honestly. Registering as a diverse supplier with EY is a few hours of work if your certs and capability statement are ready. Getting an actual award is a longer game measured in months, gated on EY having a need in your category at the moment a buyer is looking.

The sequence that works:

1. Get certified with the body that matches your ownership (NMSDC, WBENC, NGLCC, Disability:IN, or NaVOBA).
2. Register through EY's inclusive procurement inbox and supplier form, and complete the portal questionnaire when prompted.
3. Target a category EY buys and tailor your capability statement to it.
4. Pursue Tier 2 by getting in front of EY's prime suppliers in your space.
5. Stay visible. Update your certification before it lapses, refresh your capability statement, and follow up. Corporate supplier diversity is a relationship pipeline, not a one-time form.

EY is one of dozens of corporate programs worth registering with, and concentrating on one buyer is rarely the right bet. Browse the corporate program directory to find the firms that buy what you sell and run active diverse-supplier programs, then register with the ones that fit. Listing your business in our supplier directory puts you where corporate buyers and primes search when they're sourcing diverse vendors. And if you're new to selling into corporate supplier diversity programs generally, start with our walkthrough on how to get into corporate supplier diversity programs.

Certification plus a sharp capability statement plus persistence is the whole formula. EY's door is open to registered, certified suppliers. The work is making yourself the obvious answer when a buyer has a need.